Organising for action - first aggregate meeting of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset

Saturday marked the first aggregate meeting for Socialist Party members across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. The purpose of these meetings, to be held monthly, are to coordinate activity and organisation across what is a very large, sparsely populated area. The day's activity started with a stall in Exeter High Street, where our demand for the nationalisation of the oil, gas and electricity companies met with a positive response.

In the meeting itself, Tom Baldwin from Bristol Socialist Party and the National Committee introduced a session on the current economic crisis and the role of our party in the turbulent weeks, months and years ahead. Following this was a vigorous discussion, in which most who attended made contributions, ranging from the role of a revolutionary party in influencing events and bringing to the working class past experiences of struggle, which will be essential in the trying times ahead, to how the rising unemployment will affect people and their ability to fight back.

In the second session, JT analysed the recent work of the party, most notably in establishing new branches and campaigning in workplaces, colleges and universities, and outlined his view of how we should proceed over the coming months, and coordinate our work across the counties. In the debate that followed, action was decided upon and the future work of the party was thrashed out. We are entering times when it is necessary that we are at the top of our game, in defending workers and youth from the attempts by capitalist politicians to make us pay for the mess they and big business has created, through their wasteful, exploitative, crisis ridden system.

Meetings like this, with full and frank discussion aimed at working out how we can take effective, coordinated and organised action, will help the Socialist Party play an important role in the south west.